‘A try-hard.’
‘One of those old guys who try to look cool.’
‘Was he flirting with you?’
She shrugs. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Would you recognise him again?’
‘I guess.’
She describes him. It might be the same man Alice spoke to, but his hair was darker and longer and he wore different clothes.
‘I want to try something,’ I tell her. ‘Lie down and close your eyes.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t worry- nothing’s going to happen- you just have to close your eyes and think about that day. Try to picture it. Imagine you’re back there, stepping onto the train, finding a seat, putting your bag in the overhead rack.’
Her eyes close.
‘Can you see it?’
She nods.
‘Describe the train carriage for me. Where were you sitting in relation to the doors?’
‘Three rows from the rear, facing forwards.’
I ask her what she was wearing. Where she put her bag. Who else was in the carriage.
‘There was a little girl sitting in front of me, peering between the seats. I played peek-a-boo with her.’
‘Who else do you remember?’
‘A guy in a suit. He was talking too loudly on his mobile.’ She pauses. ‘And a backpacker with a maple leaf on his rucksack.’
I ask her to focus on the man who sat opposite her. What was he wearing?
‘I don’t remember. A shirt, I think.’
‘What colour was it?’
‘Blue with a collar.’
‘Did it have anything written on it?’
‘No.’
I move on to his face. His eyes. His hair. His ears. Feature by feature, she begins to describe him in small ways. His hands. His fingers. His forearms. He wore a silver wristwatch, but no rings.
‘When did you first see him?’
‘When he sat down.’
‘Are you sure? I want you to go further back. When you caught the train in Cardiff, who was on the platform?’
‘A few people. The backpacker was there. I bought a bottle of water. I knew the girl in the kiosk. She’d bleached her hair since I saw her last.’
I take her back further. ‘When you bought your ticket, was there a queue?’
‘Um… yes.’
‘Who was in the queue?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Picture the ticket window. Look at the faces. Who can you see?’
Her brow furrows and her head rocks from side to side on the pillow. Suddenly, her eyes open. ‘The man from the train.’
‘Where?’
‘At the top of the stairs near the ticket machine.’
‘The same man?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
She sits up and rubs her hands along her upper arms as if suddenly cold.
‘Did I do something wrong?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘Why do you want to know about him?’
‘It may be nothing.’
She wraps the duvet around her shoulders before leaning her back against the wall. Her gaze drifts over me awkwardly.
‘Do you ever get the feeling that something terrible is about to happen?’ she asks. ‘Something dreadful that you can’t change because you don’t know what it is.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Why do you ask?’
‘That’s how I felt on that Friday- when I couldn’t get through to Mum. I knew something was wrong.’ She drops her head and looks at her knees. ‘That night I said a prayer for her, but I left it too late, didn’t I? Nobody heard me.’
29
DI Cray has organised for six boxes to be delivered to the cottage. They must be back in the incident room by morning. A courier will collect them just after midnight.
Inside the boxes are witness statements, timelines, phone wheels and crime scene photographs relating to both murders. I managed to get them into the house without Julianne noticing.
Closing the study door, I turn the key and take a seat before opening the first box. My mouth is dry but I can’t blame my medication. Stacked in boxes around my feet is evidence of two lives and two deaths. Nothing will bring these women back and nothing can harm their feelings any more, yet I feel like an uninvited guest sorting through their underwear. Photographs. Statements. Timelines. Videos. Versions of the past.
They say once is an event, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern. I have only two crimes to consider. Two victims. Christine Wheeler and Sylvia Furness were the same age. They went to school together. Both were mothers of young daughters. I try to imagine each of their lives, the places they went, the people they met and the events they experienced.
Already, in the space of forty-eight hours, detectives have pieced together a biographical history of Sylvia Furness (nee Ferguson). She was born in 1972, grew up in Bath and went to Oldfield School for Girls. Her father worked as a haulage contractor and her mother a nurse. Sylvia went to university in Leeds but dropped out in her second year to go travelling. She worked on charter boats in the Caribbean where she met her future husband, Richard Furness, in St Lucia in the West Indies. He had taken a year off from university and was transferring yachts for rich Europeans. They married in 1994. Alice came along a year later. Richard Furness graduated from Bristol University and has worked for two major pharmaceutical companies.
Sylvia was a party girl who loved to socialise and go dancing. Christine couldn’t have been more different. Quiet, unadventurous, hardworking and reliable, she didn’t have boyfriends or an active social life.
One interesting point was that Sylvia took self-defence classes. Karate. In this case, it didn’t help her fight back. There were no defence wounds on her body. She submitted. The pillowcase that hooded her head was a popular high street brand. The handcuffs belonged to the husband- purchased from a sex shop in Amsterdam- ‘to spice up their sex life.’
How did the killer know about the handcuffs? He must have been inside Sylvia’s flat, invited or otherwise. She didn’t report any burglaries or break-ins. Maybe Ruiz is right and it’s a former a lover or boyfriend.
Wondering out loud, I begin talking to him, trying to understand how a predator like this one thinks and feels. ‘You knew so much about them- about their houses, their movements, their daughters, their shoes… Did you tell them what to wear?’
There’s a knock on the study door. I turn the key and open it a crack.
